UPDATE: Wartnabys in court with hopes to evict refugees
The case was adjourned until 17 June to allow the refugees to file answering affidavits.
ANDREW Wartnaby, owner of Hope Farm, was in the Pietermaritzburg High Court on Monday, 6 June, asking the court to assist him evict the refugees who refuse to leave his farm.
The Cato Ridge family opened its 20-hectare farm to 143 foreign nationals, including children, who were displaced during the 2015 xenophobic attacks.
Andrew and Rae Wartnaby, both 47 at the time, decided to take the refugees in when they heard that the eThekwini Municipality was closing the single remaining camp for displaced foreigners in Chatsworth.
The group moved to the farm after the state dropped charges of trespassing against 85 parents, and the adults at the camp refused to take the UN High Commissioner for Refugees’ financial assistance to be reintegrated back into the communities or be resettled elsewhere.
The foreign nationals started to threaten the family and refused to leave.
Rae said to the Highway Mail earlier this year, “We feel like we were manipulated to take them in, now they have turned against us.”
The family had taken care of refugees for more than 10 months, a stay which was only meant to be for two to three months.
Rae and the children left the farm just more than a month ago after the traumatic incident in which the refugees attempted to forcefully prevent them from leaving. Andrew has continued to stay on the property.
The case was adjourned until 17 June to allow the refugees to file answering affidavits.
